Professionalisms
Dealing With Distressed Clients: Nine Ways To Stop Dreading Them… And Start Helping Them
If you’re like most businesspeople, you’d do almost anything to avoid a fearful, tearful, or angry client. Joseph Callaway, who has helped many people through the worst times of their lives, urges you to change the way you view these customers in distress. Not only might you change their lives, you might change yours.
5 Tips To Making The Most Out Of Your Small Business Saturday
On Saturday November 24th, Small Business Saturday will be making its yearly (since 2010) return in an effort to help drive shoppers to local storefronts and merchants across the United States. Deborah Sweeney, CEO of MyCorporation, offers some tips to rally your community together and prove that shopping small is big for business.
Top 5 Happiness Tips For Business And Sales Professionals
J.B. Brocato, CEO of Intense Coaching and Consulting Worldwide and author of "A Service Provider's Guide to Starting a Unique Business Networking Group" offers 5 keys that, while applicable to everyone in creating a life of long-term happiness, are particularly relevant to the sales professional.
Protect Before You Connect! Simple Precautions To Avoid Online Personal Privacy Disaster
The Internet is an amazing, fantastic, vibrant place. But there are also evil people out there who steal identities, hack credit card accounts, track personal information, violate privacy, insert malicious programs that can exploit your company or home network, destroy your hard drives and raid your social network. Mark Weinstein, Mark Weinstein, CEO and founder of Sgrouples.com, shares some ways to protect yourself.
Sales Survival Tactics For Struggling Companies
Closing deals and increasing sales can be challenging in the best of times, but with the ongoing recession, it's even tougher for sales reps to hit their goals. David Mattson, CEO of Sandler Training, offers five sales survival tactics for struggling companies.
Clients First: Move You Beyond The Cliché And Change Your Business Forever
It’s not easy to stop thinking about your own needs and start thinking about the client’s. In fact, it goes against the grain of human nature. And yet, it’s the magic bullet that makes everything else fall into place. Joseph and JoAnn Callaway, authors of Clients First, explain precisely how to make the shift.
Seven Reasons Why Customer Reference Programs Fail
Customer references can be a cornerstone of your growth strategy — but only if you collect, manage, and deploy them the right way. Too many companies don’t, says Bill Lee, author of The Hidden Wealth of Customers. He reveals the most common
mistakes that cause customer reference programs to wither on the vine.
Project Management For High Performing Lazy People
Project management sucks. Yet without it, we fall apart. Will Schroter, serial entrepreneur and founder of Fundable.com, shares a few project management tips.
Proof Positive: Seven Facts To Breathe Life Into Your Business
Just as there are facts of life that affect us personally, there are facts of business life that affect us as entrepreneurs. Bill McBean shares what he has learned over the course of a successful career to help you avoid common mistakes and steer your company in the direction you want it to go.
The Facebook Trap: How Social Media Gets Co-opted By Traditional Marketing
It’s easy to see why companies are seduced by the buying potential of Facebook’s one billion users. Unfortunately, many try to market to them (and those on similar sites) using old-school tools and tactics that are inherently unsuited to social media. Bill Lee, author of The Hidden Wealth of Customers, describes a better approach.
Top 10 Ways To Save Time At Work
Time is our most precious commodity. Adam Gurian, president of Timex, offers ten ways to save time at work, so that you can increase productivity and makes the best use of your time at the job.
Are You Putting Your Rock Star Customers To Work?
If you think of your customers only as buyers of your products or services, think again, says Bill Lee. By finding, nurturing, and leveraging your potential “Rock Star” customer advocates, you can put them to work selling, innovating, building your brand…and growing your business in the best possible way.
Community Relations And The Small Business
If you own a small business, good public relations is essential to its success. TJ Saunders shares five ways that you can develop positive relationships with the community that you serve.
Is Your Customer Communication Up to Par?
There is a need to communicate with clients, suppliers, partners, investors and most importantly customers. Customer communication is often overlooked in business. If you are looking for a way to increase communication with your customers, you need to know how to communicate.
Oops, My Bad!: Five Ways Your Business Can Improve By Admitting To Mistakes
Mistakes are a fact of life. No matter how much you try, you can’t completely avoid making them. And according to Michael Houlihan, they can actually help to improve your company’s effectiveness and reputation if you handle them well.
Finding The Right Words For Every Customer Interaction And Situation
As a service provider, it’s your job to give great service to all of your customers, but you know it can be really tough to do that. Renée Evenson, author of "Powerful Phrases for Effective Customer Service" offers 5 powerfully effective phrases to help you deal with difficult customers.
Five Tips To Climb The Corporate Sales Ladder
Climbing the corporate ladder can be challenging in any industry, and sales is no exception. David Mattson, CEO of Sandler Training, offers five tips for gaining the skills and experience needed to earn that coveted promotion.
7 Guidelines To Consider When Starting An eCommerce Business
Like any new business, setting up an eCommerce store involves an abundance of research, strategy, planning and business savvy. Tallya Rabinovich, CEO of IzzoNet, shares 7 important guidelines to consider when starting your own e-commerce business.
10 TED Talks Every Team Should Watch
While individual achievement can be great, sometimes it takes some serious teamwork to get things done. These TED talks explore the power of collaboration and offer tips and tools for better communication, productivity, and more.
Seven Things Your Customers Can Do Better Than You
If you think your customers exist solely to “buy your stuff,” you’re missing a huge part of the picture. Bill Lee, author of The Hidden Wealth of Customers, says your customers are uniquely equipped to influence your product development, sing your praises, and even close sales for you. He describes seven things they can do better than you.
Brand Innovation: 8 Ways To Amplify Your Brand Across Platforms Through Content Marketing
Content marketing isn’t just about creating as much stuff as possible. It’s about helping people innovate their lives through gifts of art, says Nikos Acuna, author of "Mindshare: Igniting Creativity and Innovation Through Design Intelligence". He suggests some ways that you can gradually build on your brand innovation platform.
The 10 Best Teams Ever Assembled (And What We Can Learn From Them)
Here's a definitive list of the best teams ever assembled, along with what each of them has to teach us.
Branding The Barefoot Way: How Worthy Cause Marketing Can Help You Grow Your Company
If you have a great product or service, a passion for giving back, and a tiny budget, guess what? You’re the perfect candidate for worthy cause marketing. By partnering with the right nonprofits, small and medium-sized companies can gain instant access to loyal customers, give them a social reason to buy… and have a lot of fun in the process.
Ten Questions To Help You Check The Vital Signs of Your Client Relationships
Many of us use annual checkups to keep tabs on our physical health each year. But Andrew Sobel says checking the vitals of your professional health is just as important. He suggests performing client relationship checkups.
10 Scientific Facts About Successful Teams
Team science encompasses a wide range of disciplines, such as cognitive psychology, business management, education, and sociology, among others, and explores the ins and outs of group dynamics. Here are 10 pointers for those who are involved in planning and managing teams.
8 Unexpected Ways To Promote Your Business
Whether you’re a business owner or a future entrepreneur, perhaps you’ll have some success using one of these eight unexpected ways to promote your business.
Priced To Sell: 10 Tips For Finding The Right Price For Your Goods
If pricing your products for profit were that easy, everyone would be doing it! Chip Averwater shares his advice to help you avoid costly mistakes and get ahead of the competition.
Seven Ways Leaders Can Unearth (And Neutralize) The Fear That Lurks Behind The Blame...
Are fingerpointing and responsibility dodging poisoning your culture? Mike Staver explains that fear-based leadership lurks at the heart of the blame game. He explains what leaders can do to overcome their own fears and find their courage — and help their followers do the same.
A System For Rapid Realignment
Dr. George H. Labovitz and Victor Rosansky, co-authors of "Rapid Realignment: How to Quickly Integrate People, Processes, and Strategy for Unbeatable Performance", believe that assessing and measuring realignment of an organization towards its goals helps to improve operational performance.
Inside Job: Why Dealing with “Difficult” Colleagues Will Lead to Happier Customers
When an organization’s employees aren’t happy, it’s unlikely they’ll be providing the kind of quality service that leads to happy customers. One of the fastest ways to create internal strife is to let “difficult” people go unchecked. Ron Kaufman teaches that the best way to handle these personalities is to help resolve the difficult situations they’re experiencing so that everyone at the organization has the positive energy needed to provide uplifting service to customers.